Palin Elaborates on Joe’s Resume

This is the lunch we have been provided by the Palin staff. The life of a campaign reporter is glamorous and fulfilling.

Bowling Green, Ohio

We’ve just wrapped up the second Palin campaign event of the day, a “Victory in Ohio” rally whose highlight — aside from the rather off-key selection of “Big Ol’ Jet Airliner” as pre-rally music — was the introduction of Joe the Plumber. Or, as the press corps has come to call him, JTP.

I don’t mean to be weird or anything, but the sexual tension was palpable:

He is neither. But then again, his name isn’t Joe and he isn’t a plumber. So, really, who’s to blame her for getting a little carried away?

Speaking of getting carried away, Palin drew excited responses from the crowd when she — for the first time during the campaign — brought up Rashid Khalidi, “another ‘professor’ and ‘guy in the neighborhood.’”

Palin’s attack on Khalidi has been eagerly anticipated by GOP faithful for sometime. The National Review, in particular, has practically begged for the campaign to make an issue of “the top apologist for terrorists” — i.e., former spokesman for the PLO — who is another (distant) associate of Sen. Barack Obama’s. Indeed, when Palin first mentioned him, mangling his name a bit in the process, several audience members shouted good-natured corrections.

Palin grouped Khalidi with another familiar target: the media, suggesting that The Los Angeles Times has been suppressing a video tape of Obama’s attendence of the controversial figure’s birthday party: “The newspaper that HAS THAT TAPE — THE LOS ANGELES TIMES — REFUSES TO RELEASE IT.” She continued, “If there is a Pulitzer prize for excellence in kowtowing, then, LA Times, you’re winning it.”

The crowd was winning something for its loud voicing of approval.